by Claire Adams
“Mmmm, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for playing,” he leaned in and gently touch my cheek. “Are you sure you have to go back to work today?”
His breath made my body tingle as I closed my eyes and felt him near me. I didn’t want to go back to work. I didn’t want to deal with the stress of the hacker in our system or the jerk of a boss I had. I wanted to go someplace with Brandon and let all the stresses of my life just melt away.
But I knew that I couldn’t do that; as much as I wanted to be irresponsible, that just wasn’t me.
“I’m going to have to finish work, sorry.”
“I understand. I used to work, you know,” he said proudly. “I’m unemployed now, though. I promise I’ll make something of myself someday.”
“My mother always warned me about dating a man who didn’t have a job.”
“She said to stay away from guys like me, didn’t she?”
“Yep. She’d be so disappointed in me,” I said.
We both laughed, and I found myself again feeling totally comfortable with Brandon.
After our first date, I wasn’t exactly sure if I had imagined how nice it had been to be with Brandon. It had been such a long time since I’d had a decent guy around, I had started to believe I just made up the chemistry in my head to justify why I liked him so much. But as I sat there with him, it was clear I hadn’t made anything up, at all. We did match up very well. There was chemistry between us, and I was more myself around him than I was with most people.
“So, your ex-wife seemed nice,” I said to break us out of our erotic mood.
It certainly did the job, and all of a sudden we were in a totally serious conversation. I really did think his ex-wife seemed nice, though. She had smiled at me and made eye contact; she didn’t look like a bitchy ex-wife, like I had built her up to be in my head.
“Yes, she’s a decent person. We just couldn’t stay married.”
“Do you mind that she’s getting remarried? I know you said you weren’t so sure about the guy, but do you still love her?”
“I will always care about her. We had a beautiful son and a great marriage while it was good, but I’m not in love with her.’
“My friend Mattie seemed to like you.”
“Yeah, she did. You better be careful; I think she might try to steal me away from you,” he said.
“Are you mine?” I leaned my head onto my hand and looked over at him.
I felt like he was mine and I was his. It was weird, and I didn’t want to feel that way. I was the girl who pushed people away. I was the girl who didn’t like commitment and wasn’t going to date a guy because I knew there weren’t men out there who could understand my loss. I was the woman who didn’t know if she would ever fall for another man as long as I lived; yet I sat there hoping that he would say he was mine.
“Do you mind if I say yes?”
“Just for now,” I said in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Who knows? I might decide to let Mattie have you,” I winked.
“Mmm, this blouse is so soft,” he said as his hands moved to the bottom of my blouse and pulled it out from my skirt. “Do you have the white bra on I gave you?”
“I think you need to keep your hands to yourself, mister,” I teased. “We are going to get ourselves arrested for indecent exposure.”
I was joking, but there was a part of me that was a little worried that we were going to cause a scene. I wasn’t the kind of girl who had sex in public or let a guy play with me like Brandon had just done. This wasn’t me, yet it felt like me. I was a little out of my comfort zone and needed to pull things back in a bit.
“I’m not exposing anything, yet,” he laughed. “Please, tell me this is the one I gave you?” His fingers moved under my blouse, and I felt my nipples perk up to attention.
“Yes, now get your hands back on your side of the table.”
“Are you really sure you need to work?”
“Yes. Hands back to your side,” I said firmly as I pulled his hand away and placed it on the table with his other one, while trying not to smile at him. “You are being very naughty.”
“Okay, I give up. I can’t handle it. I need to have my hands on you,” he laughed and leaned in toward me.
Brandon looked at me as if he wanted to actually devour me right there in the restaurant. It had been so long since I’d been looked at like that. So long since a man wanted to flirt with me in the middle of a public place. My heart was bursting with desire for this guy. I didn’t even care if what was going on was just pure lust; it didn’t matter. I felt great and wanted more of it. I couldn’t get enough.
We finally finished our food and flirted our way right out the door and toward my office. I was tempted to cave in and give up the rest of my day to him, but I just couldn’t step away from the mess that was going on with our systems. As much as I would have loved to spend my day in his bed, I was responsible and work came first.
“Thanks for walking me back to my office,” I said as he pulled me up against him and we leaned on the building. “I should get back up there now.”
“So, you’re really going to leave me hanging?” His hips pressed against me and I felt his body bulging with desire.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to give in and go with him to his house. Oh, how I wanted to feel his hands on my naked body as I screamed out in pleasure.
I wanted to do it, but I wasn’t going to because I was responsible and I needed my job. My boss already hated me and I wasn’t about to give him a reason to fire me.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Friday, you and me, an official date. Do you have a babysitter for the night?”
“Maybe. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
His warmth set my body on fire, and I couldn’t help but press my hips back into him and tease him a little. We were in front of my office building, though, and I couldn’t take things much further than I was already. Instead, I kissed him and pressed away from him so I could go back to work.
Brandon held onto my hand and pulled me back toward him as he kissed me passionately one last time. His lips urged me on, and I found myself wrapped around him and unwilling to release our lip lock. My body felt comfortable next to his, unusually comfortable for a man I’d only been out with twice, but I went with it anyways.
“Okay, I really need to get back to work now,” I whispered as I looked up at his amazing eyes.
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Yes. Yes, you are. Your lips, your hands, those damn eyes… They are too hard to resist.”
“I’ll close my eyes.”
He did close his eyes and pulled his hands behind his back as he stood there smiling at me. I used the only bit of willpower I had to kiss him quickly, one last time, and then ran into the building.
“Mattie, I’m in love,” I said.
“Wow, you look in love. But you hardly know this guy. What happened to taking it slow?”
“Why do I look in love? Is it because I’m smiling? Damn, I can’t stop smiling. Even thinking about him has my body tingling from my toes to my head. What is going on? I seriously didn’t plan this at all. I couldn’t have planned this. I hardly know him, oh man,” I rambled on as I collapsed in my seat.
“That consultant guy was here a minute ago; he needs you to log him into the system so he can look for the errors again.”
“Oh God; it’s ridiculous that Robert would rather let some strange consultant fix things than allow me to do my job. It’s like he doesn’t care that I actually work here.”
“Chauvinist pig,” she said, using my words from a few days before.
“We went to lunch, and we flirted so hard.”
“Mmmm, do tell.”
“I feel like I’m not even in control of my own emotions when I’m around him,” I said. “It’s like he has a grip on my heart and is pulsing it harder and harder each time we meet.”
“That’s grossly graphic.”
“I know, but it
’s true. I’ve spent the last few years terrified to have any sort of real relationship, but here I am feeling all sorts of love with a guy I barely know.”
“A rich guy you barely know,” she said with a smile. “Let’s be honest here, Del, he’s an awesome catch. He’s nice, handsome, smart, and rich. I don’t think even you could find a reason to push this guy out of your life.”
“Who knows? I seem to have a knack for ruining good things.”
When the consultant came back to my desk, I was forced to get back to work and couldn’t keep talking with Mattie. I felt bad that the consultant had to bother with our issues; it obviously wasn’t what his job normally was, but Robert had a way of convincing people to do things for him. His level of bossiness was off the charts, even around people who didn’t work at the company.
“How are you two doing with this problem? You know I expect this to be figured out soon,” Robert said as he hovered over the two of us.
“Sir, we are on top of it and should have it secured shortly,” the consultant answered.
“Yep, we got this,” I added.
Robert didn’t stay long enough to hear my answer and quickly went back to his office. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if he was a chauvinist pig or just a jerk to everyone. I was starting to think that acting like a jerk was just part of his character.
“If you’d like to show me the server where the financial data is kept on, I think there’s a link that needs to be secured so we can verify there isn’t a hacker. The financial data seems to be the main information they go after, so let’s make sure that is secure and we can move on from there to look for their trail.”
“Of course,” I said as it hit me. “We have some very high profile clients with a lot of money. We definitely can’t have hackers getting access to their personal information.”
“See this,” the consultant said as he pulled a string of code out and pasted it to the clipboard. “What’s this look like to you?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to compare it to the original code. What do you think it is?”
“It looks like a worm. I’ll let you do some research, and then I’ll come back tomorrow to see if we can fix it. Let me make a quick copy of this code and I’ll look it up at home tonight, too.”
The consultant put a flash drive in and quickly copied the information we were looking at. I hated to admit it, but I was a little relieved he had found the error so quickly. It certainly did look like some erroneous coding and that was the first sign of a hack in our accounts.
The consultant didn’t seem like the typical computer guy, and although I tried not to notice, I couldn’t help it. He was muscular and fit – not really the norm for computer nerds. But then again, I wasn’t the norm for a computer nerd, either.
My heartrate was sky high as I spent much of the rest of the evening going through code and trying to see if there were any other signs. If that code was fake, there had to be more, or at least some other sign that I could use to find the hacker. It was also entirely possible there wasn’t a hacker at all and the code was a vital part of the system.
The longer I stared at the screen, the more I started to question my ability as a computer professional. I had been working with the coding on our website for several weeks and had not been able to find the error. But within one afternoon, the consultant found erroneous coding in our financial system. It really bummed me out that I hadn’t found it first.
It was close to midnight when I finally climbed in my car to go home. I checked my phone before getting on the road and just in time to see a text come through from Brandon.
Brandon: How’s your night? Are you curled up in bed thinking about me?
Delilah: Still at work. Getting on the road shortly, though.
Brandon: That’s probably my fault for dragging lunch out so long. Sorry
Delilah: No worries. We actually have a big a mess going on here. Certainly not your fault. I had fun at lunch.
Brandon: Me, too. I’ll let you get to driving. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven.
Delilah: Deal. See you then. I’ll text you my address.
Brandon: Goodnight. Try not to have too many dreams about me.
Delilah: Night.
Oh, I was planning on having as many dreams about Brandon as humanly possible. I hoped I would have so many nasty, naughty dreams that I’d wake up in a state of pure bliss. Our little lunch date was going to fuel my dreams for a long time to come. Pretty much all the time I’d spent with Brandon since meeting him was fueling my naughty thoughts at night.
It had been so long since I’d allowed myself to be a sexual being. I’d spent the last few years as a mother and a responsible employee. Those were the only ways I identified myself. But now, with Brandon, I felt like a sexually attractive woman who was desired and longed for. I really hadn’t realized how much I missed feeling attractive and desired.
Desire was just one of those feelings you didn’t realize how much you missed, until it came back to you after being gone for a very long time.
So far, dating Brandon had been absolute perfection and I couldn’t wait to see how our date went on Friday. I didn’t have expectations and I wasn’t pushing myself into a relationship. I genuinely was happy with exactly how things were going. I was even happier with how full of energy and life I felt because he had come into my life.
PART 3
Chapter Twelve
Brandon
“What are you doing on your trading account?”
“I’m just checking to see what’s going on. They still haven’t cleared that flag, though.”
“I’m starting to think you’ve got a real-life investigation going on here. I think we need to look at the companies you’ve invested in and see if we can figure this out. With your card getting frozen the other day, this isn’t looking good, Brandon.”
Josh was looking out for me and I knew it, but I didn’t like to be scared for the hell of it. I liked real data and so far, we didn’t have any of that. So far, we just had a red flag on my account and nothing more.
“The credit card thing was because of a mess up with Rose, it wasn’t part of this,” I tried to assure him.
As the words left my mouth, I doubted them, though. Was it all totally unrelated? Or had I actually invested in something that triggered an investigation? I really had no idea, and I knew if I was going to be able to get to the bottom of things, I needed to be totally honest with Josh.
My life had been pretty much by the book. I usually followed the rules, and when I didn’t, I was still within the legal limits. I wasn’t the kind of guy who looked the law in the eyes and laughed at it. I followed the law and the idea of going to prison for anything scared the hell out of me.
“Okay, well then, you are probably fine.”
“Josh, I need to show you something,” I reluctantly said as I logged into the purchasing area of my account. “I continued trading for the last few days, and I even did pretty well.”
“What? Brandon!”
“Shit, I know; but if they were investigating me already, then it wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t invest in anything I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m telling you, Brandon, they will find a way to connect you to the weirdest things. I had a friend who was investigated because he purchased a lot of diapers online and happened to invest in the same diaper company. None of it was illegal and he happened to have twins, so he bought a lot of damn diapers, but it was a disaster,” he said.
“If it’s all right with you, I think we should have my friend check this out. He’s a private investigator and can dig up some details for us. At the very least, he will be able to confirm whether there is or is not an investigation going on. Is that all right?”
“Should I get my attorney involved?” I asked.
I didn’t want to have to call my attorney. Not only was he hundreds of dollars per hour, but I really didn’t want to waste his time if there was nothing actually going on. It was entirely po
ssible that neither my online account nor my banking issue were a big deal, at all.
There was a loud knock at the door, which scared the crap out of me and Josh. We both sat still and looked at each other for a moment before I got up to answer it. I couldn’t explain why, but I was afraid. Maybe it was that I was afraid someone was coming to arrest me, or just afraid because of how loud the knock had been; but I certainly was worried.
“There’s a scary-looking dude in a suit,” I said and shrugged because there was no reason for a dude in a suit to be at my house. “If something happens, call my lawyer; his number is in that top drawer.”
“Hello, I’m looking for Brandon Baker,” the man said as he removed his sunglasses.
He flashed a smile at me that barely hid the dangerous look in his eye. If he hadn’t been wearing a suit, I would have thought he was there to rob the place. His muscles bulged at the seams and his neck was at least as large as my leg.
“Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Antonio Pryor with the Securities Exchange Commission. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your old business partner. Do you have a minute?”
A wave of relief rushed through me. My old business partner was the guy who had bought my company from me. I was up for answering questions about anyone else as long as I wasn’t the one in trouble. I breathed a sigh of relief as I let the man into my house.
“Brandon, should I call your attorney?” Josh asked as he joined us in the entryway.
“No, I think we are okay here. Do I need an attorney?”
“That’s up to you,” he said. “I just have a couple questions about your interactions with your business partner leading up to the sale of your company. I’d be happy to set up an appointment if you’d like to wait and have your attorney present.”
“No, no, I don’t have anything to hide. What can I help you with?”
“Mr. Miller purchased your company on the first of April, is that correct?”
“Yes, I believe that is the day the sale was final. We had worked together for many years up until he purchased the company, though.”
